


Taking Care

by Ms_Julius



Category: Spider-Man - All Media Types, The Spectacular Spider-Man (Cartoon)
Genre: Comfort, Fluff, M/M, Sickfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-27
Updated: 2019-03-27
Packaged: 2019-12-25 12:45:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,552
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18261563
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ms_Julius/pseuds/Ms_Julius
Summary: When the good doctor falls ill, there is really only one person there to take care of him.Now, if only that person would know a bit more about caring for the ill...





	Taking Care

**Author's Note:**

> There was a post touching this subject in Tumblr user @angerydj's blog.  
> Their art is adorable, btw! You gotta check it out:  
> http://angerydj.tumblr.com/

Where did the doc keep their clean bed sheets again? He was certain they had just moved them from one cabinet to another, but for the life of him Maxwell couldn’t recall exactly where they had set them in the end. He’d need to change the ones he had put on their couch earlier, and perhaps he should go and get some more expectorant from the store? And when he took another look in the fridge, he noticed how their storage of orange juice was starting to wear thin...

“Doc, is everything cool? You don’t need me to bring you one of those wet towels, do you? Did you already drink the juice? You should get on to that, it is important to keep the body hydrated when sick!”

Maybe he was overreacting a little bit. Not much, but there was a slight off-chance that his long litany of repeated questions were beginning to have an unwanted results.

“Maxwell, really! I am a man well over my fifties. I do know how to handle a simple flu.” Octavius’s voice, strained by a layer of hoarseness from the cold, managed to carry over all the way to the kitchen. “You needn’t to worry yourself with this, it shall pass in a few days on its own, I assure you!”

Leaning against the counter, Maxwell let his eyes drop on the clean cutting board where the ingredients for a chicken soup had been laid out. Or at least he hoped these were the right ones. Cooking had never been his strong suit.

“Well if you wanna suffer through it all by yourself, be my guest! But I’d seriously like to see you try and walk your way in here after the stumble you had just this morning!” he called back out, allowing a small smirk play on his lips when silence followed. “That’s what I thought. Now be quiet and let me finish making our dinner and we’ll get you some new sheets to sleep in.”

“I am perfectly fine! There is no need for such fussings!” An overly loud sigh echoed in the apartment, followed by a fit of coughs. “Had I known you’d be this insufferable as a nursemaid -”

“Well maybe you should have thought about that before you decided to try to and infiltrate a hospital lab during an epidemic season!”

Maxwell could almost hear the roll of eyes happening in the living room. He let it slide for now, not really in a mood to rile the man up as he normally did. Despite his generally meeker nature, Maxwell had come to notice that the good doctor actually made a horrific patient. He refused to let himself feel ill, insisting that his condition was in much better state than what the evidence proved and most of all, he made constant attempts to shake off Maxwell’s efforts to tend to his needs.

Guess what they said was true after all; a foolish head ails the whole body.

“Hey, do you think I should wash the chicken first? Y’know, before I toss it in the kettle?” He threw a doubtful eye at the piece of meat lolling on the desk. “I mean it looks clean, but aren’t you supposed to like, I dunno, fry it and then add it in?”

There was a moment of silence. “What in the world are you doing in there?” Octavius asked, his tone cautious. “I thought you were just heating up the leftovers from yesterday?”

“I was going to, but then I remembered we ate them later in the evening.” With a slow motion, he lifted the chicken up. “So now we’re gonna have a warm chicken soup instead. Isn’t that what they all say you should eat when you’re sick?”

“As I have repeatedly stated, it’s merely a flu!” There was a rustling sound coming from the doorway, and when Maxwell turned around, chicken still in hand, he saw his patient resting against the door frame leading into the kitchen. Defying his earlier remark, it seemed. Octavius had wrapped himself up with a thick blanket, but there were visible shivers running down his body regardless. He looked like a weary bear just woken up from his winter torpor.

“Oh dear. You are actually trying to make it from the scratch.” Limping slightly, the doctor made his way inside the room properly, coming to lean on the same counter Maxwell was posted before. He took a quick look over the cutting board, turning away momentarily to cough in the direction of the doorway. “Do you have any idea how to cook something like this?” he asked while raising a questioning eyebrow at the supposed chef next to him.

His cheeks had grown warm. Maxwell cleared his throat and put the chicken down, turning his attention to the vegetables instead. “In theory. How hard can it be, honestly? It’s just a damn pot of soup.”

If only he felt as confident as he sounded.

Octavius, after giving him a sharp glance, hummed quietly and took a step away from the table top. “Not that I do not appreciate the gesture - a foolish one it may be - but wouldn’t it simply make more sense to order a dish from a restaurant instead of wasting a whole evening fighting with it?”

Maxwell would be lying if he claimed that the thought hadn’t popped into his head as well. But there was more at stake here! He had already begun, and leaving it halfway just felt wrong. When he had been ill, not that he often had, but on those rare occasions his mother had always made chicken soup and hot pieces of bread for him. He could still recall the sense of calm and comfort the mere act of eating such a meal provided. It almost felt as if they had been a crucial part of his own experiences with sickness, and just for once in his life, he had wanted to share the same feeling with someone he had grown to care...

“Maxwell? Is there... Is everything quite alright?”

The worried voice shook him back to present, and he was forced to blink couple of times behind his mask in order to ground himself again. He took a quick look at the man standing beside him. Octavius had one of his hands placed on his shoulder, a gentle squeeze offering him another point to focus his mind to.

With a shaky laughter he eventually waved it off. “It’s nothing, doc. Just caught up in my thoughts, is all.”

“Is that so?” After another suspicious peek at the taller man and the ingredients on the table, he spoke out, thankfully letting the matter drop. “Would it trouble you terribly if we ordered out tonight? If you’d prefer, we could always try this again tomorrow, when we are a bit more... prepared, shall we say?”

It was a sensible plan. And as Maxwell watched his partner swaying dangerously on his feet, he had to admit that dragging out the dinner might not be the smartest of ideas, given how neither one of them had really eaten since the late morning. It would make sense to just place an order and spend the rest of the night making sure his stubborn lover would actually get some rest before he tumbled over completely.

“Alright, we’ll get something from that Chinese place you’re so fond of,” Maxwell said, summoning up a tiny smirk. “Who knows, maybe they have some soups on the menu and I won’t have to eat my own promises entirely tonight!”

Octavius snorted at that, a stuffy little sound. “Should I be concerned about this new obsession of yours, my dear? You seem to be jumping from one to the next rather quickly, I’m afraid I might lose count soon.”

“Says a man who spent five years in a closed off lab because he couldn’t get his tentacles to work!”

His purposely playful remark earned him an another eye-roll of the evening. “Fair enough.”

Suddenly, there was a change in Octavius’ stance, a minor lurch to one side. A swift move of a hand from Octavius tried to brace himself to the counter, but his coordination miscalculated. With a quick step forward, Maxwell wrapped his arms around the shaken body, tugging it firmly against his own and taking on the weight of them both before Octavius had a chance to slam his head into the corner of the table.

He blinked again, slowly this time, as he counted the rapid beats of Octavius’ racing heart against the palm of his hand.

“We should really get you back to the couch.”

He felt the way Octavius slumped, all the energy in his body drained by his lapse of control.

“... very well.”

Maxwell let out a relieved sigh. He had been ready to wrestle the man into a laying position if need be. Bending down slightly, Maxwell brought his face on the level with Otto’s head. Carefully, he leaned over the shoulder and planted a would-be kiss, without his mask, on the pale cheek before pulling away.

“Maybe we will make a decent patient of you after all!”

A sweaty hand swatted at the air where his head had just been, making him grin all the more wider.

“Let us hope not.”


End file.
